Ernst Schrewe

Ernst Schrewe (born March 21, 1900 in Blasheim , Lübbecke district; † June 6, 1957 in Hamburg ) was director of the Hamburg Adult Education Center, the Hamburg school administration and professor of economics at the University of Hamburg.

Live and act

Ernst Schrewe was the son of a farmer, the fourth of nine children. From 1919 to 1922, Schrewe trained as a primary school teacher at the teachers' college in Herford. He worked as a journalist, managing director and teacher, became a member of the national-conservative Bismarck Youth, the Stahlhelm and the German National People's Party (DNVP). He then completed his economics studies in Freiburg and Berlin in 1932 in Münster with a degree in economics. After marrying Marianne Wöhrmann, a pastor's daughter from Herford, Schrewe moved to Hamburg, where he accepted a position as a consultant for educational issues at the German National Association of clerks. However, the DHV was dissolved in 1933 as a result of the Gleichschaltungsgesetz and Schrewe was dismissed. He then worked as a teacher at the Hamburg Adult Education Center and worked on his doctoral thesis. In 1933 he received his doctorate with Heinrich Sieveking at the University of Hamburg with the thesis The adaptability of agriculture to economic changes.

Although Schrewe was critical of the National Socialists' economic policy, he followed the advice of his friend Gottfried Treviranus and became a member of the NSDAP on May 1, 1933. Schrewe spoke at meetings of the National Socialist Teachers' Association on the subject of "The Basic Forces of National Socialism". In doing so, he was moderately National Socialist. He placed the resistance of “the healthy” against “the sick” at the center of his concept, but refrained from making anti-Semitic and racist statements. Due to his teaching activities at the adult education center and at the urging of Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann, Schrewe was appointed director of the Hamburg adult education center in 1937. At the same time he was a lecturer in social economics, completed his habilitation and taught from 1942–1943 as an associate professor for economics at the University of Hamburg.

After Operation Gomorrah in July 1943, Kaufmann gave Schrewe the task of reorganizing and administering the Hamburg school system. As part of the Kinderlandverschickung he should try to prevent as many children and young people as possible from returning to the destroyed Hamburg. To this end, until shortly before the end of the war, he called, albeit increasingly less successfully, to take part in the extended children's area dispatch . Schrewe spoke repeatedly in public and expressed himself moderately loyal to the regime. In April 1944 he organized a “pedagogical week” with which he wanted to increase the “spirit of resistance” among Hamburg teachers. Schrewe tried to outsource and distribute decision-making powers as far as possible; on the other hand stood the hierarchically and dictatorially organized political system. Under the title Senate Syndicate, Schrewe was the only head of the school and university authorities between 1933 and 1945 who was not a professional politician.

With the end of the Second World War , Schrewe's service life ended. In the context of a denazification process in 1949 he was considered "unencumbered", but in 1950 stood before the court together with his legal advisor Hasso von Wedel. The prosecution held Schrewe complicit in the death of Yvonne Mewes , who had refused in 1942 to accompany the deportation to Kinderland. Schrewe and von Wedel then tried unsuccessfully to force the teacher to resume the teaching post and reported her to the Gestapo after she had resigned . Since there was no evidence of Schreve's guilt, the trial, chaired by Fritz Valentin, who later became President of the Senate at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court, ended with an acquittal.

In the post-war years, Schrewe campaigned for the restructuring of the economy. At courses held by companies and employers 'and workers' associations, he spoke about a new social order and the tasks of the entrepreneur of the future. In 1954, Schrewe was a co-founder of Haus Rissen - Institute for International Politics and Economics in Hamburg. With the rank of Scientific Council, he worked at what was then Hamburg's World Economic Archives and resumed teaching at Hamburg University as an honorary professor for economic and social policy. Ernst Schrewe died of a brain tumor at the age of 57. He left his wife and four daughters.

literature

• Athina Chadzis: Schrewe, Ernst . In: Hamburg biography . Volume 4, Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 313-315.
• Uwe Schmidt : National Socialist School Administration in Hamburg. Four leaders , Hamburg 2006. ISBN 978-3-937816-49-4
• LG Hamburg, August 28, 1950 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicides 1945–1966, Vol. VII, edited by Adelheid L Rüter-Ehlermann, HH Fuchs and CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1971, No. 234, pp. 289-365
• Jürgen Hagenmeyer: 50 years HAUS RISSEN, political education in Hamburg 1954 - 2004 . Dissertation at the University of Hamburg in the Department of Social Sciences, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-9809508-4-0 , editiononline.de

Individual evidence

1. Ernst Schrewe, The transformation of our social order. Tewista-Verlag, Hanover, 1950; P. 46